conveyancing, inheritance tax, income tax, mortgages, initiative,
referendum and recall, election reforms, tax adjustment, and similar
topics. In great questions, like Conservation, the Federal Government
has distinct problems it must carry out alone; there are some problems
that must be solved by the States alone, some that may require to be
worked out in cooperation. But the greatest part of the needed
conservation is that which belongs to the States, and which they can
manage better, more thoroughly, more judiciously, with stronger appeal
to State pride, upbuilding, and prosperity, with less conflict and
clearer recognition of local needs and conditions and harmony with them
than can the Federal Government. Four-fifths of the timber standing in
the country to-day is owned, not by the States or the Government, but
by private interests.

The House of Governors will not seek uniformity merely for the sake of
uniformity. There are many questions whereon uniform laws would be
unnecessary, and others where it would be not only unwise, but
inconceivably foolish. Many States have purely individual problems that
do not concern the other States and do not come in conflict with them,
but even in these the Governors may gain an occasional incidental
sidelight of illumination from the informal discussion in a conference
that may make thinking clearer and action wiser. The spirit that should
inspire the States is the fullest freedom in purely State problems and
the largest unity in laws that affect important questions in Interstate
relations.

While uniform law is an important element in the thought of the
Conference it is far from being the only one. The frank, easy
interchange of view, opinion, and experience brings the Governors
closely together in the fine fellowship of a common purpose and a